VizChitra 2025

About The Project
In 2023, The Caregiving Lab undertook a design research initiative to explore the lived experiences, challenges, and systemic gaps faced by caregivers supporting people with high-risk, life-threatening conditions. These included cancer, heart disease, life-altering accidents, congenital conditions, and other medical needs requiring intensive treatment and long-term care. Our intent was to go beyond statistics and understand the deep, emotional terrain of caregiving. Over six months, we engaged with 19 extreme users through in-depth interviews and group sessions across urban and rural Karnataka, India. These caregivers, often overlooked by formal systems, helped us understand how drastically life changes when caregiving enters the picture — not just in terms of time and effort, but emotionally, relationally, and existentially.

We mapped their lives before and after becoming caregivers, identifying nine major facets of care: Housework, Food and nutrition, Hygiene-related tasks, Healthcare interactions, Work and education, Personal time, Finances, Transport and logistics

To bring these insights to life, we chose data storytelling as our medium — not in the form of numbers alone, but as a layered, emotive narrative. We drew inspiration from the lifecycle of flower petals to symbolize how it affects a caregiver’s life. Each petal in the visual represents an area of life — such as sleep, finances, or social time — and is shown in one of three states: unaffected (vibrant and intact), feeling the brunt (wilting or drying due to external pressures), or affected (fallen or lost entirely). The spreading thorns represent the invasive, consuming nature of caregiving responsibilities and the narrative goes on to imply that caregivers require more support and nurturing, similar to plants that need to be de-weeded and cared for.

Creating the visual was a process of translation — from stories to structure, from patterns to petals. We tested multiple visual metaphors before landing on the flower. This form resonated most deeply with our audiences, who reflected that it allowed them to feel the caregiver’s load, not just observe it. The final piece has since been showcased at conferences and events, sparking meaningful conversations around empathy, care infrastructure, and shared responsibility. Our goal was not just to document — but to evoke, validate, and advocate.

Takeaways
Data + Storytelling a strong tool? : When raw data is interwoven with emotion, metaphor, and narrative, it has the power to do more than inform - it can validate experiences and push difficult conversations into more humane territory. In the case of the caregivers load, the visual storytelling tool helped move beyond a one sided understanding of a caregivers life to how it affects normal life and functioning cumulatively.
Enhancing the Need for Caregiver Support: This session focuses on the emotional and logistical dimensions of caregiving, highlighting the urgent need for stronger support systems that are caregiver centered. One key takeaway is how emotional support is just as critical as medical guidance. Storytelling—when paired with data—can shift the narrative from individual burden to collective responsibility, fostering empathy and system-level change.

Audience
The session is for anyone working in or impacted by caregiving and healthcare-whether through personal experience or professional roles. While it will deeply resonate with those who have cared for someone, it’s also designed to be an eye-opener for those who haven’t, offering a window into the emotional, cultural, and systemic layers of caregiving that often go unseen.

Who are we?
About Noora Health and the caregiving lab

Noora Health is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health outcomes by equipping patients and family caregivers with the necessary skills to manage health conditions effectively at home. Its focus is on critical life-saving skills, chronic disease management, and postoperative care — all of which are delivered through engaging and culturally-appropriate training and content.
The Caregiving Lab at Noora Health is an innovation hub that delves into the nuances of caregiving through design-led research, bringing in an outside-in perspective. The outcomes of the lab are intended to help advance care practices within our organization as well as advocate for caregiver support.

https://noorahealth.org/

Here is a link to the visual - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jYanFXAyNJjr1T227D3cuw-24Q_4VHd1/view?usp=sharing

Here is a blog written about the visual -
https://noorahealth.org/thecompanion/caregiving-a-bittersweet-journey/

This data visual has been animated. Please reach out to simran@noorahealth.org for any further information.